Protecting my trip and ticket when carpooling with strangers?

[gaminwench]

I have a major, many year eplaya crush on mojo. Just sayin'.

[Sham]

Sparr, you remind me of my sister. She worries about everything that never happens. "What if I make dinner reservations, and I get there and they don't have the reservations"? Her "what if's are endless.

As it turns out, she is soliciting advice from anyone and everyone who will give it to her, but it's so she can have someone to blame if anything goes wrong. Her favorite line after the fact is, "I never should have listened to you".

I have learned over the years to not offer up any ideas, suggestions, referrals or hints to her or her husband.

A few years back, she needed a photographer for an event and was complaining that the price she got was high. I simply said that she should get a few quotes. Well she did get another price and hired the second photographer that she didn't like. She has repeated several times that she never should have listened to me and got that second quote.

I am infinitely more careful now, and use the line "I don't know" as my universal response to her.

Sparr, you have to figure all this stuff out by yourself. There is no one who can help you with every unlikely scenario that will never happen. You will have no one to blame or praise but yourself. Your decisions will need to be made ONLY by your gut feeling--on the fly. It all falls back on YOU and ONLY YOU.

[FlyingMonkey]

Sparr, you remind me of my sister.

She must not get many dates (Kidding). not kidding

Seriously though.........

Sparr, I get you. You pose a question with an answer already in your mind & when the masses don't validate your solution you post quotes, overanalyze every possible scenario, and generally rub a lot of folks the wrong way (is there a wrong way to rub someone???). I have to admit that I Plonked you for a while but ePlaya seemed dry & boring without you so I removed you from my Foe list. If you drone on & on I just stop reading your posts.

Back on topic.........the ONLY solution to your above concerns is to only rely on yourself. Drive yourself to the Playa, don't pick up any strangers, don't bring in drugs, don't try to "game" the system. Plan & set up your own camp & bring all your own necessities. You're a smart guy, you can do it.

To protect yourself from hippy thieves that may steal your ticket buy 2 tickets. Keep one in an obvious place in plain sight as this is the decoy ticket. Sew the other ticket to the inside of your party merkin & wear it from the time you leave home all the way to Gate.

Failing that, you may actually have to rely on someone who is not Sparr. Granted that is a colossal risk. I mean just think of everything that could go wrong with that (Oh.......never mind. That box is checked). It amazes me that a single Burner ever makes it to The Man considering everything that "could" happen. My mind just spins with the possibilities. Heck, I may just stop going & save myself now.

Have you ever considered that something good could come out of your best laid plans failing? Ok, lets assume that you end up traveling with some douche that doesn't have a ticket or otherwise gets you turned around. Yeah, that would suck. But maybe, just maybe "rolling with life", something good could come of that. Perhaps you would find yourself back at WallyMart looking for a ride and meet a group of Sparrlike Burners looking for their messiah. You walk up & you all hit it off, get rides in, camp together, & start a village next year (my dream of Zorb Human Bowling would finally come to fruition). None of that would have happened if you didn't get turned back at Gate.

Sometimes bad things cause awesomely good things to happen.

Ok, maybe my example is a bit extreme for even you, but you get my point. You don't know what life will bring you until you live it. Make the best out of a bad situation, learn from it, & move on to the next adventure. Getting to Burning Man isn't rocket surgery. 60,000+ Burners do it every year.


You Can Do It !
You Can Do It !
You Can Do It !
You Can Do It !

[Ratty]

OK. Alrighty. Everyone copy this quote and post it as a reply. Then we can just sit back and Sparr can argue with himself.

Sparr, you have to figure all this stuff out by yourself. There is no one who can help you with every unlikely scenario that will never happen. You will have no one to blame or praise but yourself. Your decisions will need to be made ONLY by your gut feeling--on the fly. It all falls back on YOU and ONLY YOU.

Sham

[FlyingMonkey]

OK. Alrighty. Everyone copy this quote and post it as a reply. Then we can just sit back and Sparr can argue with himself.

Sparr, you have to figure all this stuff out by yourself. There is no one who can help you with every unlikely scenario that will never happen. You will have no one to blame or praise but yourself. Your decisions will need to be made ONLY by your gut feeling--on the fly. It all falls back on YOU and ONLY YOU.

Sham

But if he ends up quoting a quote of a quote & actually ends up arguing with himself he may get caught in an endless loop & not be able to start new seemingly endless threads. OMG that would cause a disturbance in the Sporce. Quick, someone hit ALT-CTRL-DELETE on Sparr........Quickly, CTRL-Break isn't doing anything.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN! SNAP OUT OF IT!

[AntiM]

Well, he's enthusiastic and trying to be prepared. The Anti Sparkle Pony?

[Sham]

Sparr, you remind me of my sister.

She must not get many dates (Kidding). not kidding

I have literally fallen asleep while talking to my sister on the phone. She has an amazing ability to talk endlessly and use nothing but filler phrases and antidotal blatherings. She's my sister, so I try very hard to remain interested in what she's saying, but it's really difficult most of the time.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but whatever.......

[FlyingMonkey]

Well, he's enthusiastic and trying to be prepared. The Anti Sparkle Pony?

Yes AntiM, you are correct. But you can what if something to death and not be any better prepared.

Sparkle ponies need love too. Remember Radical Inclusion. We love the Sparrs and the Ponies alike

Group hug ((( )))

[lucky420]

Well, he's enthusiastic and trying to be prepared. The Anti Sparkle Pony?

Yes AntiM, you are correct. But you can what if something to death and not be any better prepared.

Sparkle ponies need love too. Remember Radical Inclusion. We love the Sparrs and the Ponies alike

Group hug ((( )))

No not all of us, but you're a sweetheart I'm not

[Ratty]

AntiM and Flyingmonkey. You are both so much nicer than I. Lucky, meet me around back. We'll finish off this bottle and throw paper airplanes at cars. Hehe.

[FlyingMonkey]

Well, he's enthusiastic and trying to be prepared. The Anti Sparkle Pony?

Yes AntiM, you are correct. But you can what if something to death and not be any better prepared.

Sparkle ponies need love too. Remember Radical Inclusion. We love the Sparrs and the Ponies alike

Group hug ((( )))

No not all of us, but you're a sweetheart I'm not

Sorry, I'm so cynical sometimes people actually think I mean what I say

I have a black heart & am pure evil

[FlyingMonkey]

So, did we solve this whole "Not trusting Mankind" thing? Seems we could wrap this one up now.



Just say'n.........

-And WTF, no comments about the party merkin? I can't be the only one here with one.

[Ratty]

Ok. It's a wrap. I'm done.

[sparr]

if everybody in the vehicle does not have a valid ticket

please ask to see valid tickets when riding in.

Someone from Burner Express chimed in on the reddit thread to confirm that us mere mortals don't have access to a system for confirming if a ticket is valid.

I do plan to print out the voided ticket list and bring it with me, for what little good that can do.

[sparr]

Sparr, you have to figure all this stuff out by yourself. There is no one who can help you with every unlikely scenario that will never happen. You will have no one to blame or praise but yourself. Your decisions will need to be made ONLY by your gut feeling--on the fly. It all falls back on YOU and ONLY YOU.

you can what if something to death and not be any better prepared.

These sorts of response is what makes it obvious you're just here to troll me, not actually paying attention to what I or anyone else is saying. So far these discussions have helped me a lot, with scenarios of varying degrees of likelihood. I am better prepared based on these answers. I've learned a bunch of new things, some of which are applicable to the goal of this thread. I know to keep a copy of the invalidated ticket list handy for checking everyone's tickets against. I know to watch out for the police (and/or expect to have to deal with them) in some scenarios I wouldn't have expected that to be a concern in. I know the Burner Express folks have a ticket validity checking system. I know some gate folk turn away burners without a vehicle. This is all useful information.

Your trolling doesn't bother me. The only part of all of this that bothers me is people who blame me for responding to your trolling, up to and including that reddit ban mentioned earlier.

[Sham]

Sparr, mine would be the most sensible advice that you should have been taught as a child. Don't obsess over scenarios that will most likely never happen AND if something goes array, you should be able to think on your feet. Virtually every bad thing you've been asking about, I have never actually seen happen in all my years attending.
Will you really be checking numbers on all the tickets in a car, should you be offered a ride? Will you be grilling all the passengers as to where they purchased their tickets?

I am not really being facetious, but what would you actually do if your ride pulls over and puts you out of the car at a rest stop? (ok, maybe a tad facetious, but it could happen)

[Eric]

I know to keep a copy of the invalidated ticket list handy for checking everyone's tickets against.

Huge word of warning: that list is not complete, and is impossible to keep up to day. Ticketing does the very best they can to keep it current, but they're out on the playa a few weeks before the event & updates slow down (even though tickets are still being invalidated). And, no, that's not going to change - it's been that way for years, though they've improved in getting them updated.

[sparr]

Will you really be checking numbers on all the tickets in a car, should you be offered a ride? Will you be grilling all the passengers as to where they purchased their tickets?

That seemed like an unreasonable course of action a few days ago, but since not agreeing with the people who suggested I should do that is a big part of why I got banned from the subreddit... yes, that's exactly what I'm going to be doing, although I don't know that I'd skip straight to "grilling".

I am not really being facetious, but what would you actually do if your ride pulls over and puts you out of the car at a rest stop? (ok, maybe a tad facetious, but it could happen)

Ask for a ride from the safest-looking of the next few vehicles full of burners I saw stop, and follow the aforementioned advice to check all of their tickets.

(You probably want to argue with me, here, about checking all of their tickets being the best course of action. I'm the wrong person to argue that with; you want all the people I already disagreed with on the subject.)

[maladroit]

These sorts of response is what makes it obvious you're just here to troll me, not actually paying attention to what I or anyone else is saying. So far these discussions have helped me a lot, with scenarios of varying degrees of likelihood. I am better prepared based on these answers. I've learned a bunch of new things, some of which are applicable to the goal of this thread.

Oh wow, so you've posted questions here and gotten responses you actually found useful? Things that have improved your life? And here we all thought that you were displeased with every response we've given you, that none of it was useful or being absorbed? I wonder how we got that impression?

<goes to sparr's profile, searches posts for words like "thank, thanks, thank you">

0 results.

Oh. That's why.

[maladroit]

OK, that might be a bit unfair because I get 0 results when searching the entire board for "thanks" (though there is no notice that it's been blocked due to being too common a search term). So either we're all a bunch of unthankful bastards here or the board search is secretly blocking that term.

[justanta]

That seemed like an unreasonable course of action a few days ago, but since not agreeing with the people who suggested I should do that is a big part of why I got banned from the subreddit... yes, that's exactly what I'm going to be doing, although I don't know that I'd skip straight to "grilling".

Protip sparr: The people on the sub suggesting you do that were being sarcastic and trying to fuck up your burn for laughs. They are almost as good at sarcasm there as people are here

Checking people's ticket numbers against the voided list is a certain why to piss off everyone around you and make them not help you out.

P.S. Did you ever find that ticket you are looking for?

[Token]

That seemed like an unreasonable course of action a few days ago, but since not agreeing with the people who suggested I should do that is a big part of why I got banned from the subreddit... yes, that's exactly what I'm going to be doing, although I don't know that I'd skip straight to "grilling".

Protip sparr: The people on the sub suggesting you do that were being sarcastic and trying to fuck up your burn for laughs. They are almost as good at sarcasm there as people are here

Checking people's ticket numbers against the voided list is a certain why to piss off everyone around you and make them not help you out.

P.S. Did you ever find that ticket you are looking for?

You fucking ruined the ruse.

The culture jam with the voided ticket list was epic, now it is forever unclean.

Stop interfering with my experience

[justanta]

You fucking ruined the ruse.

The culture jam with the voided ticket list was epic, now it is forever unclean.

Stop interfering with my experience

I am forever ashamed

[mojo]

Yo, Sparr - the bar codes on the tickets are scanned, each time someone comes in with them - with a hand held scanner connected to the data base. We are not new to this rodeo.

[sparr]

Protip sparr: The people on the sub suggesting you do that were being sarcastic and trying to fuck up your burn for laughs. They are almost as good at sarcasm there as people are here

I thought so, too, until I got banned for "challenging" the bad advice.

P.S. Did you ever find that ticket you are looking for?

Still looking. So far one offer of a $990 ticket for face value (not that desperate yet) and a $390 ticket for over face value

Yo, Sparr - the bar codes on the tickets are scanned, each time someone comes in with them - with a hand held scanner connected to the data base. We are not new to this rodeo.

I'm not sure what this is in response to.

[Sham]

Just imagine that you got a ride from the airport with two other people. You have your money, your valuables and your ticket all snugly hidden deep in your belongings. You find a bewildered guy at the Nixon store trying to get a ride because the people he was traveling with asked him to get out of the vehicle for asking too many probing questions of them.

This new passenger demands that everyone in the car take out their tickets and show them to him, then is asking all sorts of questions about where they acquired their tickets. Would you really pull out your hidden ticket to hand over to this stranger so he could check the validity, or would you pull over and dump him, his luggage and supplies out of your car? Would you be thinking that you were about to be robbed of your ticket by a guy who was just hitch hiking at that point? Would you find it out of place if these people offering you a ride, refused to show you their tickets?

Frankly, if it were just me in the car with lots of cargo space, I wouldn't allow someone like that in my car. I would never want this person seeing the spot where I keep my ticket hidden.

[jwilo]

Rather than keeping a printed list of voided tickets, drivers should keep a printed photograph of Sparr so they dont inadvertently pick him up.

[sparr]

Rather than keeping a printed list of voided tickets, drivers should keep a printed photograph of Sparr so they dont inadvertently pick him up.

That's part of the reason I put my photo up here. People asked for it so they could recognize me to avoid me.

[Dr Helix]

Rather than keeping a printed list of voided tickets, drivers should keep a printed photograph of Sparr so they dont inadvertently pick him up.

That's part of the reason I put my photo up here. People asked for it so they could recognize me to avoid me.

Not me! Anybody who could so frustrate, entertain and generally cause as much a stir amongst the eplayan community is someone I want to meet!!!! Interaction Cafe, 7:30 and I. Stop by and we'll go over many more things that you should potentially worry about.

[ygmir]

Rather than keeping a printed list of voided tickets, drivers should keep a printed photograph of Sparr so they dont inadvertently pick him up.

That's part of the reason I put my photo up here. People asked for it so they could recognize me to avoid me.

Not me! Anybody who could so frustrate, entertain and generally cause as much a stir amongst the eplayan community is someone I want to meet!!!! Interaction Cafe, 7:30 and I. Stop by and we'll go over many more things that you should potentially worry about.

I'd join in that conversation.
Sparr, you have played it well. I'll look forward to meeting you, too.